Auctioning of egg supplies angers Irish poultry industry

The Chairman of the Irish Farmers Association National Poultry Committee Alo Mohan has condemned Musgrave retailers for carrying out an e-auction tender to source egg supplies.

“This is a blatant attempt to force a beleaguered industry to drop the price of eggs below the cost of production, which is not sustainable,”said Mohan. “The process involves suppliers blindly bidding against each other in an effort to secure the Musgrave business. The end result is that a supplier wins the tender at a lower price than the previous year.”

“IFA are strongly opposed to any scheme to source supplies that puts producers in a situation where they are forced to supply product at below the cost of production. Retailers including Musgrave are well aware that the feed price increase of the last year has not been recovered by producers and yet they are now trying to reduce prices through this process. This is putting pressure on producers who have made significant investment.”

The Poultry Chairman said, “Poultry production in this country supports thousands of jobs and has achieved further growth in the last 12 months, which demonstrates the potential as outlined in Food Harvest 2020. Musgrave has always been seen to be supporters of Irish product, but if they are not willing to pay a fair price, it won’t be long before their ‘we buy Irish’ claims will ring hollow.”

“The commercial egg sector has had to invest millions to comply with European welfare requirements. All retailers and not just Musgrave must take this investment as well as the price of animal feed into consideration in their purchasing policies,” Mohan concluded.